


not big city standard, but it's alright

by suitablyskippy



Category: Tsuritama
Genre: Early in Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:17:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitablyskippy/pseuds/suitablyskippy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I like you – <i>qui-i-ite</i> a lot, Yuki,” Haru says. His expression is thoughtful. </p><p>“Me too,” says Yuki. “I mean – you. Not me. I – um. I like <i>you</i>.”</p><p>“Yeah,” says Natsuki, who is giving Yuki a certain sideways look that he'd rather step off the harbour wall than face straight on, “you’re not bad.”</p><p>(Festival season comes to Enoshima; and, around the same time, Yuki decides he's spent way too long Googling '<i>how to kiss an alien</i>'.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	not big city standard, but it's alright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kutsushita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kutsushita/gifts).



The shower shuts off but the tuneless humming persists, cheery and meandering, through the low burr of the extractor fan, and a couple of indeterminate thuds, and one noisy exclamation of surprise. A door slams; damp footsteps slap hurriedly along the floorboards of the hallway; another door slams, and Haru bursts into Yuki’s room suddenly enough that Yuki skids back his chair in fright and drops his phone, sends it skittering across the floor, straight beneath his desk. 

“Yuki! Look! Yuki, Yu-u-uki –” 

“Hang _on_!” says Yuki. He’s fumbling desperately around in the dustballs beneath his desk, but Haru is dripping wet and jittering with excitement, half-dressed and nowhere near listening.

“Um,” says Haru, “are you _hiding_?” 

“I’m just – Haru, one sec, okay, I’m –”

Damp feet skidding on floorboards. “Yuki, I can _see_ you! –” and then, after a pause, and much closer, in a tone of great interest that Yuki’s learned by now to react to with instant panic, “In-ti-mate moments?”

Yuki’s on his feet so fast he smacks his head against a desk leg. “Give that back!” 

“Hm,” says Haru. He’s regarding the screen of Yuki’s phone with his head to the side, a thoughtful squint. “Hmmm. Hm, hmm, hmm-hm-hmmmm – Yuki, what’s the –”

“Haru, _seriously_!”

“Not a good face,” Haru says, but he gives it back; and then he seems to remember why he came barrelling in to begin with, because he jolts upright and flings his arms out to his sides. “Look!”

Yuki was strung out on the adrenalin edge of panic but that’s pretty much gone, now; or at least the panic is less immediate, and less stark, and less likely to crash down its dam and submerge him in it. He shoves his phone into his back pocket. He can do it. He can get through the night without burning down to char and ash from the white-hot fires of his own embarrassment. He _can_ – and Haru might still be refusing to use towels after showering, just on principle, and Haru might have slung his brand new yukata on like it’s a particularly sloppy dressing gown, and he might have draped his obi round and round and round his neck instead of even _trying_ to tie it where it’s meant to be – but Yuki can handle this. He _definitely_ can. “Haru, do you need help tying your obi?”

Haru lowers his arms. “Obi?” he says, curiously. 

“This,” says Yuki. He touches his throat; Haru mimics the gesture. “It’s not meant to go round your neck.”

Haru pats it, purple and silky. “It’s a scarf,” he announces. 

“It is _not_ a scarf,” says Yuki. 

“It’s _my_ scarf,” says Haru, utterly obstinate, and Yuki finds, without much surprise, that his reaction is muted by so much weary fondness it hardly feels like annoyance at all. 

 

\---

 

Kate stops them on their way through the front garden, cocking back her sunhat to wave. 

“You’re both looking ever so grown-up,” she says when they hurry over – which Yuki doubts is true, because both of them have multi-coloured fish patterned across the loose cotton of their yukata and if there’s anything less adult than that it’s polka dots, which Haru also has, on the fan loaned to him by Sakura, currently tucked neatly into the back of the obi Yuki managed to tie for him only after a good ten minutes of threats and cajoling and physical force and, eventually, ruthless tickling – but Kate wipes her hands down on her mud-spattered jeans and smiles at them, her eyes creased warmly up, and Yuki feels pretty great anyway. “Have a good evening, boys.”

“A good evening!” cheers Haru, and flings his arms up to the sky. 

The vast tree in the square outside their house is strung about with fairy lights, twinkling through the leaves though dusk is barely falling. The shops are shut, shutters down and curtains drawn across behind the doors: Enoshima is closed for business, and a distant drumbeat sounds, muffled in the steep narrow back streets and then louder, clearer, when they break out onto the wide main street through town, their sandals clacking out hectic rhythms of their own against the stone. And lights – lights everywhere, fairy lights strung up inside closed windows and lanterns strung zig-zagging down the streets, rain gutter to rain gutter, home to home, casting puddles of jittery light across the cobblestones. 

Natsuki’s in the restaurant when they stop by to collect him; Sakura’s in the apartment above, and Coco’s with her, and they lean out the window to wave them off. 

“Nice fish, big brother!” yells Coco, peering down from behind her great round spectacles, and Haru laughs and spins for her, his fish-patterned sleeves flaring out. 

They keep on through town, but slower now, both because the crowds are growing and because there’s more to see – more lights, more costumes, more banners strung up across the streets with the Enoshima dragon prowling long and low from one side to the other. 

“It’s not bad, usually,” says Natsuki. Yuki glances round, and he’s smiling, almost, pushing up his glasses. It’s kind of weird to see him without his fishing visor. His hair definitely looks fluffier without it. “Not big city standard, but it’s alright. I mean, you’ve probably seen better.”

“Mm – _I_ haven’t, Natsuki, I haven’t seen _any_ better, not e-e- _ever_ –”

“No kidding, alien?” says Natsuki, not unfriendly, and Haru links his arm into Yuki’s and squeezes, and laughs to himself. 

“Me neither,” says Yuki. His stomach already feels liquid with nerves but the moment he realises he’s said it aloud he feels his face heating up, hotter and hotter. “This is – I mean, I’ve _been_ to festivals, but I’ve – uh. I’ve never. Um.”

“Never _what_?” demands Haru. 

“I’m _getting_ there!” says Yuki, indignantly, and at once his face is hotter still and he glares down at his feet, sandals clacking on the street. “I’ve – not with anyone else. Anyone who’s not my grandma, um – with friends,” he says, before he can think better of it, although he’s already pulling in his shoulders like it’ll help him shrink in and disappear away. “I’ve never been to a festival with friends.”

Neither of them speaks for a moment. Then Haru squeezes his arm again, and pats it, and says, “ _I’m_ your friend.”

“Thanks, Haru.”

“I like you – _qui-i-ite_ a lot,” Haru says. His expression is thoughtful. 

“Me too,” says Yuki. “I mean – you. Not me. I – um. I like _you_.”

“Yeah,” says Natsuki, who is giving him a certain sideways look that Yuki’d rather step off the harbour wall than face straight on, “you’re not bad.”

Nothing’s quite the right light under the fidgety orange cast of the lanterns. If Yuki’s redder than usual they probably can’t tell, unless they’re looking, which they shouldn’t be, and he screws up his nerve and says again, firmly: “Thanks.”

“For a stonefish,” adds Natsuki, utterly plainfaced, and Yuki rounds on the pair of them in outrage as Haru hoots with laughter. 

It’s a warm evening. It’s been warm all week, hasn’t rained since June, but more than that it’s balmy, the breeze blowing in from the sea not too clammy, not too brackish. The town smells like salt spray and sea air, the way it always does, but for once, even more than that, it smells like food: fish, grilled and baked and barbecued and fried, and vats of ambiguous stewing meats, and hot syrupy sugar and chocolate, a great rich fug of scent across the harbourside. Stalls start to spot the edges of the streets, flying flags and streamers and bright bobbing clutches of balloons; it’s busier, too, and louder, and the drums sound out closer than before. 

They turn off onto the main road and a yellow booth rises up in front of them, yellow canopy and yellow table hangings and yellow aprons tied across the black suits of the men behind it, wielding yellow ladles like they wish they were weapons. Three pairs of sunglasses blankly turn their way. 

Haru lets out a small deflated whimper and presses himself into Yuki’s back, and Yuki sets his teeth and does his best to focus entirely on being brave for him and not, maybe, not so much the way that every part of him that’s now in contact with a part of Haru feels like it’s suddenly fizzing with a terrible panicky energy, a Haru-shaped network of nervousness lit up all down the back of him. 

“Akira,” says Natsuki. “What a nice surprise.”

Akira dips his head. “Natsuki,” he says. “Yuki. Haru. Good evening.” His duck is sitting on his shoulder, a small shiny party hat perched jauntily on her head. “Welcome to DUCK Curry. Would you like to make a purchase?”

Natsuki peers into the closest vat, brownish-yellow and bubbling, reeking so hotly of spices it’s near unbearable. “We’re alright,” he says. “Bit overdressed, aren’t you?”

“DUCK Curry prides itself on the professional appearance of its staff,” Akira says, stiffly, his suit black and shineless and only slightly curry-stained on one lapel. He lifts his ladle. “Is there a problem with the – with Haru?”

“With the alien?” says Natsuki. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Is there a problem with _Haru_?” says Akira, again, icily polite, and Yuki becomes suddenly aware that Haru is not only clinging onto him, but trembling. 

“Um,” he says, and tries again, more firmly. “Um – I think me and Haru are, we’re gonna –”

“Wak _wak_ ,” says Akira’s duck. 

“– go check out the – _Haru_!” he yells, and spins round, but Haru’s already pelted off into the crowd in fright with nothing but a flash of fish-patterned cloth to trace him by. 

Yuki whirls back to Natsuki, who grabs his shoulder and says, “Take a breath – Yuki, c’mon, you’ll think straighter if you’re calm –” so he tries, but he’s never been very good at calming down and already his vision’s filling up with a thousand terrible futures with a thousand terrible, implausible ends for Haru – death by choking on a streamer so beautiful it could have been sugar paper, death by show-off acrobatics along the harbour wall when he’s too distracted to keep his balance, death by crashing his rocket ship into the cliffs on a terrified getaway straight back to outer space – 

“Yuki,” Natsuki’s saying, “ _Yuki_ –” 

The dam that’s been holding back the worst of the day’s panic cracks, just slightly, and he feels it sloshing in, from his ankles to his knees and rising. “I need to – Natsuki, I need to find him, he might be lost – he might be _lost_ –”

“Haru knows Enoshima just as well as you,” says Natsuki, his voice very steady. “Probably better, to be honest. You need to get out more. Breathe, Yuki.”

“Yes,” says Yuki, “yeah. Yeah. I need to –”

“If you were Haru, where would you go?”

“Fishing,” blurts Yuki, without thinking, still desperately scanning the crowd, “I mean – fish, I mean – I’m just gonna,” he says, “just gonna –” and then he launches away from the blindingly yellow curry stand and Akira’s affectedly innocent, eavesdropping-free curry stirring, straight into the crowd. 

Toes get squashed; elbows get weaponised. “Have you seen Haru?” Yuki yells, skidding over to a stall of glossy, slowly turning pinwheels, the kind of stall Haru’d probably be interested in – if he wasn’t busy fleeing in terror from a duck, at least, but the stallholder apologises so Yuki races on. “About – this high?” Not at the toffee apple stand. “Blond?” Not at the ring-toss stand, either. “Sort of – excitable?” he says, desperately. “Sort of loud? Really loud? Maybe you heard him instead?”

“I’d know Haru’s voice anywhere,” says the lady on the chocolate-dipped whitebait stand, and Yuki really _shouldn’t_ be surprised that the whole of Enoshima knows exactly what Haru sounds like, “but I haven’t heard him come this way. Sorry, Yuki.”

“Thanks anyway,” he says, and hurries on. 

There’s an odd hush in the next street. It’s odd because, realistically, there’s _no_ hush – music is playing, and voices are raised, and the sounds of a town bustling with activity are still there – but it seems stiller, somehow, like one long breath is being held. There’s a wide huddle of people as well, right in the middle of the road, who seem to be craning over each other’s shoulders for a better look at whatever’s in the middle of the huddle. 

If anyone in Enoshima can draw a crowd of that size that fast, it’s Haru. The thought isn’t enough to completely calm Yuki, but it’s enough to soothe him a little, and he shoulders his way through to the front of the crowd, muttering apologies. 

It’s the big shallow goldfish tank. Of _course_ it’s the goldfish tank. Like a cloud the goldfish move through the water, back to front and side to side and round in circles, a hundred tiny darting shards of orange, and the children squatting round the sides are clutching their nets and watching with the exact same wonderstruck expression as Haru, sitting with Coco and Sakura, his hands flat against the wall of the tank. 

Yuki touches his shoulder. Haru bounds to his feet. 

“Coco’s made friends!” he explains, in a noisy whisper, and Yuki looks back, startled: for the goldfish still haven’t ceased swarming, even though Haru’s turned away. 

“Coco’s doing that –?” 

Coco glances up and catches Yuki staring, and she flips a wink his way that brings down alarmingly vivid flashbacks of exactly how tiny Enoshima had seemed from the spire of the Sea Candle, and exactly how strong the wind had seemed, and exactly how hard the ground had seemed, and exactly how far away from Coco and her dubious grasp of humankind’s right to free will Yuki prefers to stay at all times. “Let’s go,” Yuki says hastily, and he ducks his head and pushes his way after Haru, out from the crowd. 

“I want to see a firework,” Haru announces. 

“We’re gonna see loads of them,” says Yuki, He hurries to catch up with him, marching down the street. “Haru, are you okay?”

“Mm!”

“It’s Tapioca, right? You – don’t like ducks?”

“Mm!” Haru says again, about as convincingly. “I don’t li-i-ike – _that_ duck!”

“Well – we won’t see her again, okay? We’ll avoid Akira’s stand. Okay? Are you _sure_ you’re okay?”

“Mm!” Haru says, and just as Yuki’s starting to despair that Haru’s going to be nothing but politely, weirdly evasive for the whole rest of the night he stops right in the middle of the street, and grabs both of Yuki’s hands in his, and turns a smile on him that’s like pushing back the downstairs shutters on a morning before the town is up yet, a sudden burst of light so strong and unexpected Yuki’s dazed into silence by it. “ _You_ came to find me, Yuki!”

Yuki tries to hide underneath his fringe. It doesn’t work. “It’s okay,” he says, and lets out an awkward little cough. Why did he _cough_? He’s entirely certain that his face is entirely red. 

“Yu-u-uki,” says Haru. His tone is very fond. His expression is very fond, too, and Yuki can’t believe that just a second ago he thought he was entirely red because this – this! – _this_ is entirely red, and his cheeks are so hot that Haru’ll probably dry up and pass out on the spot if he gets too close. “Yuki. Thank you, Yuki! Yuki, Yuki, Yuki-ki-ki – _Yu-u-u_ ki –”

“Haru, I _get_ it!” says Yuki, because there’s no blush so furious it can compel him to listen to Haru making musical nonsense of his name for the next half an hour. “C’mon – let’s keep going.”

“Okay,” says Haru, obligingly, and after a moment he grabs Yuki’s hand again to tow him through the crowds. His grip is cold, and damp, and quite uncannily strong, and it’s not possible for anyone but Haru to duck and slip and weave through gaps the way that Haru does and so within moments Yuki’s trodden on three feet and got a stranger’s elbow to his stomach: but the happiness bubbling inside of him is more  
than enough to counteract the pain of a few probably irreparably damaged internal organs. It’s probably enough to _cure_ them again. A breeze passes by and the lantern-strings above them shudder; the light cast by them shudders, too. 

 

\---

 

There’s a taiyaki stand a little way ahead. Yuki’s not sure how Haru hasn’t noticed it, given the gold-scaled fish flag fluttering out from its canopy, but Haru’s busy finding out exactly how loud he can make his sandals hit against the street if he hops and he does seem kind of preoccupied; so Yuki nudges him, and points. 

“Eh?” says Haru – and Haru spotting fish-themed things has the same kind of blast radius as dropping a weight into water, because he explodes instantly with excitement and ten minutes later they’re together on the harbour wall, sitting with their backs to the sea, opening up warm polystyrene boxes onto warm fish-shaped batter. 

“I’m keeping mine,” says Haru, after a moment. 

Yuki pauses, about to break the tail off. “You know it’s not a real fish, right?”

“Um,” says Haru, looking down at his taiyaki and its slightly leaking jam filling with deep fondness, “but – um, I want to _keep_ it, Yuki.”

“It’s gonna go off,” says Yuki. “And then it’s gonna stink.”

“I’ll put it in the fridge,” says Haru. 

“It’ll still go off in the fridge,” says Yuki. 

“It _will_?” says Haru, as though the idea is so ludicrous as to be unbelievable. 

“It will,” says Yuki. 

Haru considers this. “What if I keep it to show Kate?”

Yuki could point out that Kate’s seen taiyaki a hundred times before, or he could let Haru continue to shower affection on his newly-adopted jam-filled fish; and as only one of those options involves Haru’s guaranteed continued happiness there is, really, only one option at all. “How about if you keep yours, and we both share this one?”

“But – Yuki, that one’s _yours_!”

“I don’t mind sharing,” says Yuki, like Haru staring at him, round-eyed in wonder, doesn’t make him want to clamber up onto the wall and just yell triumphantly, the way Natsuki recommends, out at the black ocean glittering with the lights and candles and lanterns of the fishing boats who’ve pitched anchor in the harbour for parties of their own – like it’s no big deal, like he’s casual, like underneath it all he’s not still mortified about Haru picking up his phone at that particular point in time this evening. “C’mon – heads or tails?”

They split it, and eat it, and it’s not much later that people start spilling from the streets to the waterfront and down the steps to the beach, the daylight growing low and the shadows growing stranger, longer, darker. That must mean fireworks, which means Yuki’s got to – well, he’s got to actually _do it_ , soon, got to take it outside of frantic internet searches and wondering what exactly constitutes a _moment_ and whether this is one, yet, or whether this is, or this, or this – and then Haru takes Yuki’s hand in his own again on the walk to the beach, and swings it between them: and the cumulative effect is that Yuki’s stomach turns right over in a queasy mix of terror and hope and what he wouldn’t be surprised to find out is the red-bean jam pushing him into a horrific and medically improbable allergic reaction, because something awful is _definitely_ going to happen, probably, because since when has his life gone smoothly since Haru barged into it, since when has _anything_ been uncomplicated –

“I like this,” Haru says, thoughtfully, and Yuki jerks himself up from his reverie to find that Enoshima beach is busy with spread-out blankets and the bright trails of waving sparklers and chatter from all sides, and his sandals are already sinking into sand. “Let’s go by the sea, Yuki, okay? Okay?”

“ _Everything_ here’s by the sea,” objects Yuki, but he lets himself be towed down to the shoreline, where at least the damp and tamped-down sand is easier to walk on. Water laps toward them, too dark to reflect. If he tried to tie a lure now he’d drop it, snip his finger instead of the line, knot his own hands together; forget butterflies, Yuki thinks, the queasiness in _his_ stomach is more like a gale-force hurricane. 

“What about here?”

“We can’t sit _in_ the sea,” says Yuki. 

Haru takes a step. “Wha-a-at about _here_?”

“That’s still the sea, Haru, it doesn’t just _stop_ being the sea if you only stand on one foot –” 

“What about – _here_!” 

“ _No_!” says Yuki, because he’s followed Haru’s suddenly dangerously keen line of sight and realised he’s spotted Misaki, lying back on a blanket, propped up on her elbows, her huge ginger cat curled up beside her, and Ayumi sitting on the other side of the cat but directing toward it a glare quite startlingly envious. “This way,” Yuki says hurriedly, and pulls him away back up the shore, “come on, we’ll catch cold if we sit down where it’s wet – and I bet Misaki-san and the Captain want some peace, probably –” 

“ _I_ can be peaceful,” says Haru, apparently affronted. 

The thought is absurd enough to break through Yuki’s frantic layer of panic and he laughs, despite himself. 

They end up far higher on the beach, where the sand is dry and fine. Yuki sits, and Haru drops down beside him, and Yuki toes off his sandals and pushes his feet into the sand and tries not to look like the way Haru’s shifted round to sit pressed up against his right side is making him more excruciatingly self-conscious of his right side than he’s ever been; ever, or at least since the last time Haru did it, which was half an hour ago at the absolute most, and made his face just as hot as it is now. 

“I think we should have brought our fishing rods,” whispers Haru, at length, right into Yuki’s ear. His breath is warm and fishy-smelling, and so ticklish Yuki barely stops the shiver that tries to run through him. 

“I don’t think fish like the dark,” he whispers back. 

“Really?” 

“Really.” 

“Hm,” says Haru, thoughtfully, as though every last one of the conclusions he’s drawn about Earth so far have just been shaken. “Did you know,” he starts again, in a louder and particularly informational tone, “Yuki – ummm, um um, that people on Earth think fireworks are _su-u-uper_ romantic?”

“They,” says Yuki, and then he hears, _really_ hears, what’s just been said and his insides lurch straight up into his throat. He tries to swallow them back down. It isn’t working. Faintly, he says, “You – where’d you hear that, Haru?”

“Coco!” says Haru. “Coco knows _all_ about humans! And about when you put a seashell on your ear, and about hopscotch, _and_ about whitebait bowls.”

Once Haru woke him up in the middle of the night to tell him he’d seen a television programme about deer and he thought they probably looked like they could run quite fast, so it’s not like Yuki’s not totally used to Haru sharing useless facts at all hours of the day, because he _is_ , but –

But. 

Yuki tries to look at him, sideways, without looking like he’s looking or looking like he’s hyperventilating; which he isn’t, but he’s pretty sure he might do. Haru’s hitched up his yukata high enough to sit cross-legged and he’s doodling in the sand with one finger, fish and more fish, lips pursed in concentration and humming to himself; his taiyaki box is beside him and his obi’s unravelling and for some awful, inexplicable, stupid reason that’s what Yuki’s still stuck on when Haru looks around, his expression curious. 

“Yuki?” 

“It’s,” says Yuki. “Undone,” says Yuki. “I mean – your obi,” says Yuki, trying again, increasingly helpless, “it’s coming undone, at the back – it’s. Um.”

Haru blinks at him. His eyelashes are unearthly long. 

Yuki ought to explain himself. He ought to say something, because this might be a _moment_ – not the mutely, painfully awkward kind, which are far too common and not special in the slightest, but the kind too important to take an adjective – he ought to take a breath, he ought to offer to retie Haru’s obi for him. He _knows_ he should. 

But instead the Earth must lurch beneath him: because all of a sudden he’s far closer to Haru than he was, and his mouth is far closer to Haru’s than it was, and Haru’s looking a little surprised but he hasn’t leaned away. 

“Um,” says Yuki – but he still can’t think of any words, so he screws his eyes tight shut and moves the final distance and presses his lips, hurriedly, against his friend’s. 

It doesn’t last long. He looked this up online as well, embarrassed even to key it in – _how to kiss_ , _kissing tips_ , _how to kiss a girl_ , because even though Haru is quite certainly not a girl there was nothing else, not for guys, guys who might be kissing guys, let alone guys who might be kissing alien guys – but all of that’s wiped clean out from his mind the moment he feels Haru’s lips on his own, soft and strangely fishy-tasting, the way Haru’s usually strangely fishy-smelling, too. 

Haru makes a noise that sounds inquisitive, and pushes back. Yuki’s lips were closed but Haru’s aren’t, open just a little, his breath very warm, and that’s when Yuki realises he forgot to take a breath before he leaned in and it’s not just kissing he’s giddy from, but oxygen deprival as well; and he breaks away, and the air tastes fresher and more like the sea than ever. 

Haru touches his hand to his mouth, reflectively. 

Panic crashes down around Yuki, hard as the slap of ocean waves against the harbour in storm season. He has to say something – he can’t just let it – that – the _kiss_ – he can’t just let it hang there, between them, sweet and soft and – he _can’t_ , but it’s like there’s a Before and an After, and Before Kissing Haru was when Yuki was able to put words together, mostly, and After Kissing Haru is when all Yuki can do is press his own hand across his mouth and try not to think about how badly that went, and how quiet Haru’s being, and how stupidly, mortifyingly red his face must be right now – and how hard his heart is beating, and how good that felt. 

“Sorry,” says Yuki. It comes out muffled by his hand but it’s not like it’d be a lot better if it wasn’t. “I was – I just wondered, um – what it felt like. Sorry. That was stupid. I’m sorry.”

Haru doesn’t answer. Haru is studying Yuki’s face with the kind of deep and earnest seriousness that Yuki’s only ever seen him direct toward Kate’s hydrangea border before now. 

“Haru –” says Yuki, but he’s got no idea just what he was planning to say next, and he shuts his mouth again. Far out on the long stone wall of the pier there’s movement, silhouettes hurrying about against the violet sunset, readying preparations, but the whole world’s taken a backseat to just how anxious Yuki’s feeling. 

“Um,” says Haru. His frown is still very serious but now it’s very determined, too; and he pats Yuki’s knee once and then again before letting his hand lie still on it, ever so softly, ever so lightly. “Um, Yuki – what if there were _no_ fireworks?”

“No fireworks?”

“ _None_ ,” says Haru, still very intense, as though he’s laid down the very last of his cards and now he’s just waiting to see what Yuki’s got, and Yuki looks down at the hand absently patting the inside of his knee and he thinks: _wait_. 

“Fireworks don’t – they don’t just _magically_ make people want to kiss people, Haru – you know that, right?”

Haru cocks his head. Yuki’s not sure what that means. 

“So – even if,” he says, and stops, and starts, burningly hot-faced but determined to get it out. “Even if there were no fireworks. Even if – even when there _are_ no fireworks. I still. Like you, and – um. Want to.”

“Want to _kiss_ me?”

Yuki’s going to black out or collapse or die, probably, and the last thing he’ll ever see will be Haru, right before him, obi half unravelled, polystyrene taiyaki box wedged into the sand, gazing expectantly straight into his face. “Yeah,” says Yuki, though it’s an effort, “I mean – that.”

Haru considers this. Then he smiles, bright and sudden, and Yuki’s heart hardly has time to rise before Haru pulls him down by the front of his yukata and kisses back. 

It’s even better the second time. It’s less terrifying, for a start – or rather, it’s still terrifying, but it’s terrifying in a different way – a whole new way that doesn’t have a lot in common with the kind of terror Yuki’s used to, a kind of terrifying that’s about as exciting as it is frightening. He touches his hand, tentatively, to Haru’s cheek, and at once Haru pushes back against his palm and makes a small sound of interest into Yuki’s mouth that turns his insides comprehensively to liquid. 

“Seriously, you two,” says a voice. As voices go, it’s more exasperated than most but more amused, as well; it’s also Natsuki’s, and Yuki jerks away and stares toward him, wild-eyed with horror. 

“ _Natsuki_! – we were – just, um, we were just – just –”

“Kissing,” supplies Haru, helpfully. 

“I got that bit,” says Natsuki, ever more amused. “Shall I convince Kate the view’s gonna be better if she stays on the other side of the beach, then?”

“Um,” says Yuki. He takes a great, heroic breath and blurts out all in a rush, before he can stop himself: “If that’s okay with you!”

“No problem,” says Natsuki. He’s grinning, he’s _actually_ grinning now, and Yuki finds he’s helplessly smiling back, light, airy relief flooding through him. “Have fun, you two –” 

And then, suddenly, there’s a _boom_ that trembles in the very ground of the beach. A single golden flare bursts open in the sky, a chrysanthemum in blossom, made of fire. 

Haru grabs Yuki’s hand and stares up, open-mouthed in shock. 

There’s another golden flare, and another, and a fireball of red and gold that somehow showers silver, and Natsuki’s long gone, sprinting off across the beach. Yuki’s ears are ringing but Haru’s jolting in surprise at each fresh explosion, and his mouth is moving, and Yuki’s pretty sure that if he could hear anything but the crack of gunpowder and the crackle of the sparks he’d be able to hear Haru yelling about it, already manically overexcited. 

Yuki doesn’t think he’s ever seen anybody look quite so beside themselves with joy. 

Honestly, Yuki’s not sure _he’s_ ever felt quite so beside himself with joy.

**Author's Note:**

> My wily Tsuritama beta pointed me in the direction of [this extremely fitting piece of canon art](http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-43euGDv24_k/T9zGjP7leUI/AAAAAAAAASc/5zUXVpOn0KY/s2000/pash%202012-07%20tsuritama%20poster.jpg) while I was in the process of writing this fic, and once I'd seen it there was no way I could hold myself back from matching Yuki and Haru's clothes to those perfectly fishy yukata.


End file.
